Women's Swimming & Diving Headline

Saturday January 31, 2004Swim & Dive Sweeps Tennessee

The No. 4 women's swimming and diving team and the No. 5 men's team swept Tennessee Saturday afternoon in the final dual meet of the season. The women (11-2, 5-2 SEC) handed the Lady Vols a 129-103 loss and the men (9-2, 5-1 SEC) gave No. 13 UT a 129-109 loss.

The women's team won or swam the fastest time in eight of the 13 events. Florida posted one NCAA automatic qualifying time, three provisional times and three NCAA Diving Zones qualifying scores.

Freshman Leah Retrum (Columbus, Ind.) swam her way to a first place finish in the 200-yard backstroke with an automatic qualifying and career-best time of 1:58.00.

Junior Rebecca Harper (Richmond, Va.) won the 200-yard butterfly for the fifth time this season as she swam a provisional time of 2:01.34.

In the 500-yard freestyle, freshman Katie Ball (Cincinnati, Ohio) swam the fastest time in the event with a provisional time of 4:52.60. Ball has recorded the fastest time in this event four times this season.

Sophomore Vipa Bernhardt (Bad Hersfeld, Germany) swam a season-best and provisional time of 2:03.23 in the 200-yard individual medley.

Sophomore Mary Uhle (Sankt Ingbert, Germany) finished first in the 100-yard freestyle with a season-best time of 51.39, just .12 seconds off of a provisional qualifying time.

A season-best time of 23.70 gave senior Jaime Ellis (Spring, Texas) a victory in the 50-yard freestyle and was only .14 seconds shy of a provisional time.

The relay team of Retrum, Ellis, Bernhardt and Uhle had nearly a six second edge to claim first place in the 200-yard medley relay. The Gators finished in a time of 1:44.94.

Junior Meredith Green (Chapel Hill, N.C.) finished first in the 1,000-yard freestyle with a season-best time of 9:53.80. Green has won the event in three of four attempts.

Junior Nicole Bolt (Orlando, Fla.) and senior Kristen Connor (Gainesville, Fla.) each qualified for NCAA Diving Zones on the one-meter springboard. Bolt finished runner-up with a score of 284.84 and Connor scored 281.39, good enough for a third place finish. Connor also qualified on the three-meter with a score of 275.10.

With the win over No. 13 Tennessee, the men's team improves to 6-2 this season against ranked opponents. The Gators won or swam the fastest time in nine of the 13 events. UF tallied four NCAA Diving Zones qualifiers and two NCAA provisional times.

Sophomore Ryan Lochte (Daytona Beach, Fla.) and junior Adam Sioui (Ontario, Canada) each won two events. Lochte touched the wall first in the 200-yard individual medley with a provisional time of 1:48.51, and he also claimed first place the 100-yard freestyle (45.15). The sophomore now has won 20 events this season.

Sioui took first in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:39.74 and won the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 1:50.67.

Senior Chris Kellam (Mt. Juliet, Tenn.) won the 200-yard backstroke with a provisional time of 1:46.85, nearly five seconds faster than the runner-up.

Junior Scott Kaufmann (Sparks, Nev.) won the 1,000-yard freestyle with a season-best time of 9:13.44.

The relay team of Kellam, freshman Bill Mrazek (Tallahassee, Fla.), junior Gabriel Mangabeira (Piratininga, Brazil) and senior Scott Schultz (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) won the 400-yard medley relay. However, the times in the event were not correct and cannot be used for qualifying. Team points were still awarded.